A clothes-treating apparatus refers to an apparatus which treats clothes placed in an accommodating space provided in a cabinet. Here, the term ‘treat’ means a predetermined processes, for example, ventilating air to the clothes, supplying steam or hot air to the clothes to remove bad smell, wrinkles and humidity that remain on the clothes. As a result, a user can feel pleasant when putting on the clothes.
Specifically, when putting on a piece of clothing more than once, unpleasant odor, humidity and the like may remain on the clothes and this may give an unpleasant feeling to a user who tries to put on the piece again. To remove the odor, humidity, or the like the clothing might be washed. The repeated washing of the clothes, however, tends to lead to short usage life of the clothes as well as the high cost required to maintain the cleaning of the clothes.
In addition, even after washing and drying the clothes, wrinkles may remain. It is inconvenient for the user to perform additional chores like ironing and variations of it and not to be able to put on the clothing immediately.
To solve these problems, a clothes-treating apparatus may be used to remove unpleasant odor, wrinkles and humidity which remain on clothes. According to the clothes-treating apparatus, moisture is supplied to clothes placed in an accommodating space to remove the unpleasant smell, wrinkles and humidity and air, including dry and hot air, is supplied to the clothes having much moisture because of sprayed steam to dry the clothes.
It may be effective only to expose the clothes to air or hot air when removing the unpleasant smell, wrinkles and humidity. Moisture may also be supplied to the clothes to noticeably enhance the effect of the removal process. If moisture is supplied to the clothes placed in the clothes-treating apparatus, minute water particles are united with unpleasant odor particles remaining on fabric of the clothing. When the water particles unite with the odor elements they separate from the clothes during a drying process, only to be discharged outside. In such the process, the unpleasant odor remaining on the clothes may be removed.
According to the above process, unpleasant smell, wrinkles and humidity remaining on the clothes may be removed and the user may put on the clothes with a pleasant feeling.
The clothes-treating apparatus may include a circulation duct provided under an accommodating space, where clothes to be treated are placed, to circulate and dehumidify or heat air inside the accommodating space. There may be a heat exchanger disposed in the circulation duct, which dehumidifies the air inside the accommodating space by the evaporation and condensation of refrigerant
However, the heat exchanger may become polluted by various kinds of contaminants during the process of humidification. Especially if the supplied moisture is in the form of steam. The repeated presence of steam creating an environment having a high temperature and humidity, may result in a hygienic problem as bacteria, mold, or the like may accumulate in the heat exchanger. Further, water condensed from damp air inside the accommodating space may not be clean and might contain unpleasant odor from the clothes or other bad foreign substances. If the water is left out, germs and bacteria might breed resulting in an unpleasant odor.
As a result, it is required to wash and maintain the heat exchanger of the clothes-treating apparatus in a clean condition.